Movie Review: Captain Marvel

The super hero season seems to start earlier and earlier every year. Last year, I think Black Panther came out in March too. So, keeping with that theme, we have Captain Marvel, the first Marvel movie helmed by a lady director and a lady lead. What’s not to love? And I will try to refrain from spoilers, but Jude Law played to type, especially if you know about all his infidelities with babysitters in the past. This blog is a land mine for any MRAs out there, so keep moving if you’re one of those lost souls. Anyway, the movie was a solid origin story. I brought my char to the move, so, higher, faster, further, Charmander!

Higher, Faster, Further, Charmander

Brie Larson was delightful as Carol Danvers. Annette Benning was a fun placement in the MCU. There were a lot of people we’d seen in the past who I thought were long dead, but since the movie is set in the 1990s, that made it that much more interesting. Most of the MCU are pups compared to Captain Marvel. It was really nice to see an all-powerful woman. But then it begs the question, why didn’t they call her sooner when there were other issues? Like, in Ultron or the first Avengers movie?

Long story short, you should go see this movie. No Spoilers – look at me go! For the Hina test, dude, this movie is as clean as you can get. A female lead, a BFF that's African American. Samuel L Jackson - it had it all, plus a ginger cat!

Movie Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

When I heard Rami Malek was going to play Freddie Mercury, I was curious. Rami Malek’s Mr. Robot role is fairly monotone and bland. Freddie Mercury could not be further from that. Throughout Bohemian Rhapsody, the brooding portions of Mercury’s life come forward with Malek’s familiar, morose expression. The story is supposed to follow Mercury’s rise to stardom and diagnoses of HIV, but it feels like it plods at times. There are great sequences, if true, of the band creating some of their hits, like the title track, but also some of the anthems we’ve all grown to love.

I really can’t say anything outrageously bad about this movie. I liked it fine enough. The songs were fun, the cast of characters seemed lively. The intrigues and betrayal almost seemed obvious. Malek’s accent was off some of the time, and you couldn’t tell if it was his voice or Mercury’s that you were actually hearing. The band seemed to come off of the screen, having only ever really noticed Mercury, it was nice to see the rest of the people.

I genuinely felt sad for Mercury. He abandoned his family, was abandoned by his band, left with people around him that didn’t have his best interest in mind, at all, which is how he got HIV, it would seem. I cried through the last 20 minutes of the movie. Watching Malek as Mercury accept the news about his death sentence, which was exactly what it was in the 80s, and still perform at LiveAid was pretty remarkable. They blew the roof off of Wembley Stadium.

If you’re a fan of Queen, you will want to see this. If you’re a fairweather fan, you’ll probably still want to see this. It’s a fun romp, but don’t get the gourmet popcorn from AMC, it was like $10 for a small cup of popcorn. Being that this was a period piece, by default, it fails the Hina test. There were really only white men in the movie and one or two women. It was cute seeing his parents, but otherwise, there was no diversity or strong female characters.

Movie Review: Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween

I never saw the first Goosebumps movie, but I’m familiar with the series from Fox and the books, though I never read them, I’m aware of them. The premise of the movie is pretty simple, for the most part, kids find something they shouldn’t mess with, they mess with it, wackiness ensues. Like the House with the Clock in the Walls, this movie has Jack Black in it, but only briefly. The movie follows the story of a brother, his older sister, and his best friend as they battle Halloween come to life. 

I don’t want to spoil any of the movie, but for the most part, it was entertaining. I honestly don’t remember a lot of it. There were mostly a lot of laughs and a handful of genuine jump scares, but not much substance. It is a kids movie, with a bit for adults to find funny. RL Stine is an excellent writer, so the story holds up. I just never felt that invested, and the stakes were high enough. It just felt like it could have been a made-for-TV Halloween movie, one of those you used to see on ABC Family.

Onto the important stuff: the Hina test. This movie didn’t quite pass. It had a strong female character with the mom being a single parent raising two kids and the older sister doing what she can to save her brother. The best friend to the son was African American, so that’s nice, and the neighbor was Ken Jeong. He was kind of playing a bit of a caricature, but I’m not sure of what. I wish I had a middle grade, but I don’t – so this is more a fail than a pass. The movie was set in New York, so having a lot of white people wasn’t necessary. There was also a forced romance between the mom and the store manager of a pharmacy which brought nothing to the story.

If you like Goosebumps or like movies that are kind of scary, but really aren’t, then this is for you. Otherwise, I’d give a hard pass on this.

Movie Review: Venom

Action packed anti-hero movies can be a lot of fun. Tom Hardy with a wimpy American accent doesn’t do much for me, but it fit the character, to a small degree. For those of you that read the comics, watched the cartoon from the 90s, we know that there is more to Eddie Brock than being a seeming loser. The part where Eddie was a reporter who stopped at nothing to get the story was mostly correct, but in the comic, he never had the girl, which made him the perfect foil to Peter Parker, as he was always with or chasing Mary Jane. This isn’t critical to the plot of the story. The plot is somewhat hard to nail down. Is he a hero? Is he a comedian? Is it okay to laugh as Venom bites off someone’s head?

The story, if you go for that sort of thing, is about a reporter who is asked to do a fluff piece, but can’t follow instructions and pushes the envelope with a biotech, Elon Musk type, that has him fired and fires Brock’s girlfriend. Then one of the scientists gets cold feet, realizes that this isn’t okay, to kill homeless volunteers in the name of science. Brock finds out, through the scientist, finds his way into the facility, which mysteriously has no cameras, and frees one of the captives. Then the parasite grabs a hold of Eddie and the rest of the movie unfolds.

Honestly, this movie was kind of stupid. Does that mean I didn’t enjoy it? No. I have simple needs sometimes. Special effects can carry a movie. I mean, I wouldn’t pay more than the $7 I paid to see it. I also got the free comic, and my friend’s free comic, too. Tom Hardy is usually a good actor to watch, as is Michelle Williams. The rest of the cast was passable. It kind of felt like a B horror movie. Like, they skimped on the plot to spend more on the special effects. It showed. You might like it, but I can’t recommend it.

With respect to diversity, the main villain was an Indian dude and there was a strong female character in Michelle Williams. It barely passes, but it does.

Movie Review: Crazy Rich Asians

So, I’m not the romance movie sort. You should know this if you follow this blog. But, when I saw the fanfare for this movie, I was intrigued. A romance movie with like, no white people in it? Dude, sign me up! I’m already telling you that the movie passed the Hina test. While most of the actors were of the lighter-colored variety, there was still a ton of diversity and a lot of subtitles, which I loved.

You might see the title and wonder, what was this movie about? Well, the title should give a solid approximation – the movie was about a family of wealthy Asians and this woman who is dating their son, who is to inherit the fortune, manage the business. It is over-the-top in a fun sort of way. The parties are lavish. There was a friend, who knew the main character, played by Awkwafina, who is hilarious in every scene she’s in. Her family is new money and she tries to coach the main character to recognize she’s in for a crazy weekend.

The whole movie was wholesome fun. There wasn’t any shame shame scenes, no gratuitous nudity, it was a nice look at how a film could hit all the notes, happy, sad, elation, whatever, and not be too much, not be grotesque. I really liked this movie, all around, save for the predictability of it, which was expected. Romance movies rarely break from their path. I get why they’re all so formulaic, but it is still fun to watch.

Movie Review: The House with the Clock in the Walls

It’s been almost half a year since I saw a movie in the movie theatre…I was just slacking. I wanted to see a lot of the horror movies that came out, but I didn’t want to take the time to actually go to the theatre. But enough about me, you’re not here for updates on me.

A friend wanted to see this movie. I really don’t care for Jack Black, but a movie with Cate Blanchett is an event. I’ve missed far too many of her movies. She is really a treat. Years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing her live, at the Kennedy Center, performing in Street Car Named Desire. Anyway, this movie is about a kid, who loses his parents and is taking the bus to some city in Michigan to live with his uncle, who is estranged from his mother, but is the only family he has left. 

The kid gets to the house, and it appears to be haunted, but only to the viewer, not to the kid, not at first. He soon discovers weird things are happening, but can’t explain it. The uncle finally admits that the house is haunted, sort of. It turns out Jack Black’s character is a warlock, a guy witch. The back story kind of takes us through this winding path of how Black’s character moved into the house after the previous owner died in a mysterious circumstances and left a doomsday clock in the walls. The movie builds up and up and the kid accidentally raises the dead warlock who lived in the house before and has to find a way to defeat him.

For the most part, this felt like a kids’ movie. There was some potty humor, and of course, Cate Blanchett is always wonderful.  The overall story was complete by the end, but it didn’t entice me to read the books. And quite frankly, it didn’t keep my interest, but I did have a bucket of popcorn. For a kids’ movie, it was good. If you’ve got an inquisitive kid, then yes, go see it. But if you’re an adult, I’m not sure this is for you.

While the story is set in the 1950s in Michigan, one can’t expect any diversity. There were maybe two people of color and three women. Cate Blanchett didn’t have her magic totally under control and the other woman was evil, leaving the last one as a girl in the kid’s school. It felt a tad messy. I have to admit, this failed my Hina test.

Movie Review: Avengers Infinity War

Well, after 10 years and a ton of movies, the penultimate movie has supposedly come out. I should warn, there will be SPOILERS ahead. We were told the stakes would be high, but are they? I finally watched Doctor Strange over the weekend and you know, he has the time stone, a magical element that he can use to manipulate time, undo whatever has happened in the past. Imagine how helpful that would be if something awful happened, to say, all, or half, of our favorite characters. The movie starts of where Thor Ragnorok ended, and we are aboard the ship of what is left of Asgard. Loki is on his knees, pleading with Thanos about not killing Thor, not wanting to give up the Tesseract (another infinity stone) – if you missed it, there are 6 magical stones, the big bad, Thanos, has one, as far as we know, but gets the second from Loki, who stole it before Asgard fell. The ship they’re on gets destroyed and that’s how Thor ends up with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Hemdall, Idras Elba, gets Hulk off of the ship, back to NYC and he lands in Doctor Strange’s sanctum. And this is the first time Banner is back, and he isn’t the Hulk and we don’t see the Hulk throughout the movie. I don’t want to skip over anything, but the story with Vision I found very annoying. And his love story with the Scarlett Witch bored me. I know that sounds bad, especially because he has the infinity stone in his head, and it’ll likely cost him his life. But I’m going to change gears.

For several movies we’ve heard nothing but fear and anxiety about Thanos. This movie finally gives us a glimpse into some of his origins. It doesn’t delve deeply enough, into what makes him think that he’s right, but we see a flashback of him taking Gamorra from her home world and adopting her, sort of. There is a moment, towards the end of the movie, that Thanos is explaining to Iron Man/Tony Stark, what happened to his home planet, Titan. This, to me, was the most important scene. Thanos says he noticed how wonderful Titan was, how prosperous it was, how overcrowded it was. He said he made a suggestion, or something, to decrease the number of people, to kill off a large group, but not based on wealth or status, just random. That encapsulates the ending. As you expect, Thanos gets all of the stones, has the completed gauntlet and does exactly what he says he’s going to do. And poof, like that, half the heroes are gone. But not any of the original Avengers, not they’re all fine. And that’s what makes this so empty. The can kill of Black Panther or Spidey, but we know they have more movies coming out, so we know they’re going to be fine. So what have we been waiting for, really? I’m not sure.

Movie Review: A Quiet Place

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a good scary movie. This was a good one, but with all the hype, I expected something to stay with me, and it really didn’t. This movie reminded me a lot of Signs. That was an M.Night Shyamalan movie, so that shouldn’t be lost on you. For those of you trying to avoid SPOILERS, it is worth watching, for those of you that want to know more, read on.

The popularity of post-apocalyptic movies seems to have no end in sight. In this movie, the story starts out with a family foraging for meds for one of their kids. Clear in the first scene, you see all the chip bags untouched by the family, by anyone, which is interesting given that in that time, you’d think it’d be hard to find food. So, the family leaves the store, all using sign language. The one kid wants to take a noisy toy, but the dad says no, but one of the kids lets him take it, this doesn’t end well. The scary thing shows in the first few minutes and the dad can’t get there in time to stop the kid from getting eaten. The movie moves up about a year and the mom is prego. How she can have a baby and be quiet is beyond me. 

Anyway, of course, the family goes in separate directions, to collect food, or something, and wackiness ensues. I don’t want to give away the last mystery, but it does keep you on the edge of your seat. The scary things aren’t nearly as scary once you’ve seen them a few times, but they’re still creepy looking. The acting was well done. The entire movie was white. There were no people of color, but movies like this tend to get away with that. The two women in the movie were sort of strong, but not really. For diversity, this movie gets a hard fail. For strong female characters, it also doesn’t get a high passing mark. 

This was a good horror movie, but it left a lot to be desired. The ending was just as gut wrenching as the beginning, but just like Signs, the movie gives you slight hope, in the end.

Movie Review: Pacific Rim Uprising

I’m not sure why I had it in my head to see this movie. I was re-watching the original yesterday and it was about as silly as I recall. I get that these movies are supposed to be throwbacks to the old monster movies, like Godzilla, but there really is no heart, just a lot of special effects. And let me be clear, the special effects are amazing. The huge monsters and the huge mechs that fight them are quite impressive on the big screen. The story, with the son of Idras Elba’s character had less draw to it. John Boyega plays his estranged son, who has, in the past, gets thrown out of the flight school or something. There may be slight SPOILERS ahead, but really, I don’t know how much of the story I can talk about.

The premise of the overall story is basically that the bad monsters are gone, but there can never be enough production, so drones are being built and tested to replace the regular robats/mechs. They need another pilot to help train the new kids, so they’ve found John Boyega’s character in jail and told him he has to re-enlist or go to jail. He chooses the former option and brings a young kid with him, who has built her own mech. The two get there and the drones crash some event, putting more people in danger. Then one of the scientists from the first one who mind-melded with the bad monsters has secretly been a double agent and has been trying to get a gateway open so the monsters can come through and take over.

As you might expect, the good guys win. It wouldn’t work any other way, I suppose. There is a decent amount of diversity in this movie. The lead actor is of African descent, and he is paired with a white girl, but there are other people, of other colors throughout the movie, so that was nice. The female characters never need the guys to come save them, which is a nice change of pace. Overall, that aspect of the movie was strong. If you have kids, this might be too scary for them, especially in 3D, but it was fun. For $12, I’m not sure I’d recommend it.

Movie Review: Tomb Raider 2018

Video game movies are notorious for not being done well. I can honestly say that isn’t the case here. I wouldn’t say this was the best movie I’d seen, or that it was the best video game movie, but it was a good movie. It kept you sort of guessing, had lots of puzzles to watch being solved, very much like the game. At the same time, the movie strived for emotional moments that it never quite hit. It’s been a day and I’ve already forgotten some of the movie. There were lots of great set pieces, big action sequences, but that doesn’t make for a good movie, per say.

There may be SPOILERS ahead, so you’ve been warned. If you’ve never played a Tomb Raider game, this movie might not fully make sense, in a ‘why would anyone do this’ sort of way. The movie tries to tell the story of Lara Croft trying to discover what happened to her father. She doesn’t want to admit that he probably died on a treasure hunt, so to speak. Her guardian has to come bail her out of jail or something to introduce the audience to Lara’s immense responsibility and wealth, while she was living like a pauper for the first bit of the movie. In his will, Lara’s father gifts her with some sort of puzzle box and so she runs off, not signing the papers, which I thought was kind of funny, and tries to get some money for a necklace and then runs off to the other side of the world. Of course, there are mercenaries that are living on an island since her father’s disappearance, trying to find what was hidden. Lara escapes, with the help of a local, and somehow finds her father, who has gone a little crazy, and the two have a strange reunion before Lara takes a bow and arrows and runs off to defeat the heavily armed mercenaries. It doesn’t end the way she had hoped and Lara ends up leading them inside the tomb, to find the treasure, only discovering the treasure is really an active disease that passes through touch. As you might guess, this proves costly and Lara knows that she can’t let it get out, so once again she’s fighting with the mercenaries to stop the disease from getting free.

The diversity in the movie, as per my Hina test, was okay. Yes, the movie was helmed by a female actress, one that doesn’t seem to be white. But most of the cast was white, except the Asian actors, all men, who were on the island, being held hostage by the mercenaries. It didn’t strike me as all that empowering, even though it should have been. I didn’t get a positive vibe from the movie, not really. That might just be me.

I am not sure I can recommend this movie or not. It was enjoyable, but was it worth $10, I’m not sure. I wonder if I’d like it better if I saw it again.

Movie Review: Black Panther

This movie was touted as the best superhero movie ever. I’m not sure I’d give it quite that high of a bar to reach, but it was quite good. It is on par with Captain America, the first movie, in the origin of T’Challa and his ascension to the throne. There are going to be SPOILERS ahead, so be aware. But before we get to that, I will say that the overall look and feel of the movie was refreshing, yet it still seemed familiar, like it was a Marvel movie and you knew it. It was nice to see all the faces that weren’t all white. I thought Chadwich Boseman was very subdued as the title character. In a way, his performance let the other amazing performances come forward. I couldn’t figure out why I recognized his general of his female army, but that is Michonne from The Walking Dead. The surprises for the movie, for me were his little sister, played by Letitia Wright, and the head of the Jabari tribe, played by Winston Duke. Those two stole every scene they were in.

On to the movie itself. The majority of the movie took place in Wakanda, a fictional country in Africa. It is hidden by the technology that they possess. The opening of the movie was a CG/FX wonderland, that, with 3D glasses, in the second row, was kind of nauseating. At times, the 3D did really disorient me, more than I would have liked. I am also still miffed that AMC promised me a lanyard, but supposedly the lanyards never arrived. That’s some grade A BS. Someone yanked them and is selling them on ebay, as I might have done, given the same chance, but I wouldn’t have taken the entire box, that’s just rude.

Anyway, the story progresses and the audience is introduced to lot of new faces, including T’Challa’s younger sister and ex-girlfriend, who he saves at the very beginning of the movie. One member of the Jabari tribe challenges the new king, but T’Challa wins, then he is crowned the king. His first order of business is to catch someone who stole vibranium from Wakanda, Andy Serkis, playing a South African thief.  Let’s all stop and remember that there are two Hobbits in this move as the token (Tolkien) white guys. I can’t take credit for that line, I saw it on Twitter a while ago. Anyway, the cast was meticulously put together and everyone worked amazingly well together, as in most Marvel movies.

I posted this review without talking about the very obvious politics of the movie. The main conflict is between T'Challa and his cousin, played by Micheal B Jordan, and Jordan's character wants to send out a support structure to Africans across the globe to overcome their oppressors. T'Challa was given the leadership to keep Wakanda a secret. It is an interesting conflict between empowering people and helping them, vs. the isolationism that T'Challa grew up with.

I enjoyed the movie, but I am not sure I’ll see it again, even though a friend wants to see it this weekend. I love the inspiration this movie will provide. As the representation for African Americans was great. There were hardly any threatening white faces and that was quite refreshing. There was tons of diversity and the female characters were wonderful because they didn’t need saving, like the usual damsel in distress that superhero movies do. No, these women were fierce and smart. In a way, it almost made T’Challa a bit of a bumbler, but with a good heart. Either way, you’d be foolish to miss this movie. And if you get a lanyard, hook a charmander up!

Movie Review: Winchester

Horror movies, I never get my fill, yet I never find one that really scares me, not anymore, it seems like. This one did not scare me as much as it could have, but the based on a true events sort of thing only does scare me some of the time. The movie, in a nutshell, is a ghost story. But there’s more to it than that, and that more does make a slight difference. Helen Mirren plays the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune and the company has called in a person who can assess her mental state to see if they can’t wrestle the power of the company away from the old lady. She has been building a house, building and rebuilding for a while, and continues to do so until she dies. The idea is that the ghosts tell her to build rooms and then she seals the rooms off so that the spirits can come to rest. It is an interesting concept. One I’d not be inclined to investigate firsthand.

Overall, the story was cohesive and interesting. There were a lot of jump scares, but the evil ghost didn’t do nearly as much damage as expected. An unexpected earthquake cause a lot of damage, releasing spirits throughout the house. There is a part of the plot that involves the Winchester curse, and how any of the family will be killed because they had created a weapon of destruction. That sort of thinking is somewhat novel in this day and age of everyone thinking they need to have a gun to protect themselves. I won’t devolve into a political discussion, but in some sense, it makes the movie timely. 

The special effects were decent, the acting was decent, given a not so impressive script. There were a few twists and turns, but nothing wholly unexpected. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but it didn’t floor me. It just sort of existed and I watched it and that was really it. I’m not sure I’d say you should see this movie or not, but if you’re bored and it’s on, you might enjoy it.

As for diversity in this movie, there was none. I don't think there was one non-white character. I will say that having Helen Mirren in a movie, and she is a strong character, certainly helps, but it won't salvage the lack of other colors in the movie. I get that it is a period piece, so it wouldn't be normal to see anyone other than whites, but still.

Movie Review: Proud Mary

I love Taraji P Hensen. She’s great in everything, even with that ultra-awkward forced love storyline in Person of Interest. This movie was pretty straightforward, not a lot of twists and turns, really. The story had promise, but I didn’t feel like it executed as well as it could have. The story follows a hit-woman who accidentally kills a guy who has a kid, then follows the kid around as he lives on the street, perhaps not accidentally killing the small fish he worked for. Wackiness ensues. A hit-woman having a child is weird enough, but then, of course, she wants to leave her job killing people and that isn’t what the people she works for wants. I do wonder if they opened a bed and breakfast, like one of the other bad guys suggested.

There were a lot of curious moves for this movie, like for me, why was it set in Boston? Also, why would a hit-woman be driving a Tesle, a 4-door Tesla no less. Like, who else was ever going to be in the car with her? Towards the end of the movie, the car gets shot up real good and somehow it turns right back on, really? Come on, now. The kid was not running around trying to shoot people once he discovers that Taraji has all those guns, really? The guy she used to date ends up kidnapping the kid and threatening to kill the kid, which I thought was kind of presumptuous. I mean, if he killed the kid, then their relationship is over, but if he doesn’t, then Taraji is going to put that dog down. A lot of plot holes, as best I can see it. The action was decent, fun even, but the movie didn’t have a ton of staying power, if any at all. I’d say you’re not missing much not seeing this movie. 

Can't say much about the diversity in the movie when it was primarily African American actors. Would have been interesting to see other races represented. Also, there were no other women except the title character.

Movie Review: Thor Ragnarok

At this point, every year we get about two, maybe three, Marvel movies. I’ve been underwhelmed by them lately. I think the last one I saw was Spiderman, but from the Avengers, I think it was one of the Avengers’ movies, or possibly Captain America. I was expecting a light-hearted affair with this latest Thor movie, as the trailers suggested and I was right. There really is no point to discussing the plot. It is as convoluted as it comes, yet is quite predictable at every turn. The trailers provide the viewer with the knowledge that Thor loses his hammer, some woman (turns out to be his sister) is killing everyone in Asgard (Thor’s home world) and that he fights Hulk in some sort of gladiatorial combat. What makes all of this interesting, and very funny, is that the characters never seem to take anything too seriously. It often feels like comments and jokes are made for our (the audience’s) benefit.

For me, the stars of the movie were the woman. Anything Cate Blanchett does is amazing, but paired with her Lord of the Rings cast-mate Karl Urban (Eomer), the two were quite hilarious together. The other strong female was portrayed in a sort of side-kick to Jeff Goldblum’s crazy, was Rachel House (who I don’t really know), but she was quite comical beside Goldblum’s Grandmaster, who was delightfully eccentric. The trailers pretty much gave away everything else, so the story with Thor, Loki and Hulk seemed secondary. I wasn’t even all that interested in their story, I wanted to see how the other characters would fare going forward. I mean, at the end of the movie, it was the tamest of all Marvel movies, really no consequences seem to have come down, save for one.

Thor was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. It had one minority woman, a bunch of white women, one minority man and a ton of straight white men. The movie utterly fails at diversity, even if the aliens could be argued to be of different races. Being a Marvel movie, people will see it regardless. You will probably find it enjoyable, but I would lean towards a day showing to save a few bucks.

Movie Review: Victoria and Abdul

Yes, you read that correctly. I, Hina, went to see a non-horror, non-action, non-animated movie. Look, mom wanted to see it and her hot date (Dad) was not all that excited, so I buckled up, sans popcorns, and went with mom. This movie is based off of a book (surprise! Hollywood stole a book and turned it into a movie). I haven’t read the book, but mom was giving me asides throughout the movie. 

The story is about what you might expect. Dame Judi Dench plays Queen Victoria and Abdul is played by some guy I don’t know. Queen Victoria is getting on in years and is very lonely, the vultures of her family circling for her death so they can take over. There is a ceremony to be held in England and they are looking for two tall Hindus (to the British, I suppose there’s no difference between Hindus and Muslims). At the police station that Abdul works at, he is the tallest. The two are told not to make eye contact with the Queen, but of course Abdul can’t help it and when she sees him, she comments to someone else that he is quite handsome. The story pretty much spins from there. I would hate to SPOIL this movie, but it is rather predictable.

This is not a movie I would normally see, but I do so rarely get to spend time with my mom. It’s easier to talk sports with my father, and with the DC teams always collapsing, we have a lot to talk about. Mom wanted to see the movie so I went. It was enjoyable. There were a lot of good things about it and a few heavy handed things as well. In this political climate it isn’t easy to hit a nice balance, but this movie veered far to the side of racism and whites hating anyone who wasn’t white. Given the time period the movie was set in (late 1800s), it was sad how similar our current circumstances are to these.

As per my Hina test (strong female characters, diversity) this movie is an easy pass. Dame Judie Dench is wonderful. The fact that there are a variety of ‘brown’ people in the movie meets the pretty low bar of diversity. What is more, the movie had a lot of diversity of thought. If we are to believe the journals that the book is based off of, Queen Victoria was learning Urdu (an Indian language), learning about India, from Abdul. It is rare to see a movie where a person is open-minded and wants to learn about another culture. If you have time, this is a movie you can see with anyone (family-friendly) and worth seeing.

Movie Review: Flatliners (2017)

In the long saga of Hollywood believing that if it worked once, we should repackage it and sell it again, this is a remake of a 1990 movie, one I did not see at the time.  Having not seen the original, I can only assess the current movie. The story made sense about halfway through, then got quite tame and sort of boring as it moved on. There may be SPOILERS ahead, but please, don’t waste too much money seeing this.

The movie opens with some sort of flashback of Ellen Page’s getting into a car accident. The next thing we see is her working at a hospital with other young doctors. For whatever plot jumping reason, she decides to get two of her friends to help her with a so-called experiment, letting her body die and come back to life. This already seems like a poorly thought out plan, but whatever, they do it, and suddenly she like unlocks all this stuff and can do all these things. The other kids go and it doesn’t really get better. Each of them begins to be haunted by misdeeds they did in the past. This is just as stupid as it sounds. I really stopped paying attention, but basically Ellen Page’s ghost of her dead sister pushes her off of a fire escape, but everyone else escapes just fine.

With respect to me diversity and strong female representation test (the Hina test), this one gets a very small pass. The main character was a gay woman. Even though this wasn’t explicit, the way Page’s character dressed left little misinterpretation. There were two other women, one white (Nina Dobrev of Vampire Diaries) and some African American girl that seemed familiar. There were no other minorities really present, but it had a good mix. It wasn’t like last week’s Friend Request where the entire cast was white.

Overall, this was not a very good movie and I’m glad I paid under $7 to see it. Plus I stole ice from the theatre to ice my knees, so that was fun. 

Movie Review: Friend Request

I really wondered what I thought I was doing bothering to see this movie. When you enter the theatre and there are only 2 other people there and it’s an 11 show, it does make you start to rethink your choices. Let’s not kid, after watching The 100, seeing Alyicia Debnam Carey in anything is almost a must, though I do avoid Fear the Walking Dead because I just can’t do any more zombies. Lexa did deserve better, and so did we. Anyway. This movie is about a girl who is super popular, and pretty, and white, because of course (more on complete lack of diversity later, though there were fat people, so a quarter of a point back). Possible SPOILERS AHEAD. So, super popular pretty girl takes pity on unattractive crazy girl and then crazy girl stalks pretty girl and then commits suicide (crazy girl). Wackiness ensues. 

I could talk about the substance of the movie, but there’s not much to say. There was some implication that the crazy girl was disturbed from an early age and turned to the dark arts, how that factors into her hacking everyone’s Facebook accounts wasn’t totally clear. I always love how these sorts of movies show these people being so utterly deranged they can’t handle any sort of rejection. That seems sort of crazy. If you deal with a lot of rejection, yes, it doesn’t get easier, but people don’t usually lose their minds. Of course, the movie tries to tie in some sort of lore about the horror paying itself forward, but that’s not really interesting, is it? The movie wasn’t all that interesting either, sorry, ADC.

With respect to my Hina test (to test diversity, strong female characters) – this movie gets a hard fail, like a flaming, unforgivable pile of fail. The main character, Lauren Woodson (a Lexa reference maybe? All the fan fictions give her the last name of Woods), has to have men come save her at every turn and everyone is white. There’s the ex-guy who is still into her and then she’s dating Peter from the Chronicles of Narnia. I didn’t recognize him until I saw the cast page. Wow, Peter is all grown up and looking good. So, I think this could create a whole new sub-genre of fan fiction – Peter and Lexa with Clarke, of course, because Lexa is with Clarke. I know, this review is as focused as the movie was yesterday. 

Horror movies are supposed to be kind of scary, kind of teaching something, but this movie really didn’t teach me anything, though I may have smuggled Starbucks and yogurt in, so that was a first and while I may have covered my eyes, I wasn’t really scared. The acting was decent. AIycia Debnam Carey was wonderful as ever, but this wasn’t a strong story and the cast was not as strong as she was. I thought Will Moseley (Peter from Narnia) was actually decent, but that’s about the extent. I did think the creepy girl was creepy, but that could be attributed to makeup and lighting.  I did like that there were actors of all types, a chubby girl and her chubby boyfriend get killed first, because of course. There were no non-white people in the movie pretty much. 

Movie Review: It

When it comes to horror, the genre was reinvented, in print form, by Stephen King. It felt like a rite of passage for most of us growing up to have read at least some, if not most of his books. King had a way of spinning stories that were grotesque but also had elements of sexual tension that made anyone uncomfortable. That was one thing I never understood the need to incorporate. In many, if not most, horror movies, there is always some allusion to a hero/heroine losing their virginity and this making them able or unable to defeat whatever is coming. In the movie It Follows, this was a central premise of the movie (almost a literal, physical STD).

If you’re not familiar with the story of It, in a tiny town in Maine (where King grew up), a little boy goes missing, as well as others, and after the school year, the big brother of the missing kid and his friends try to find some clue as to the brother’s whereabouts. The book had a long drawn out depiction of the bullies in the town making everyone’s lives intolerably harder, but the movie shows the kids all banding together against the bullies, and even one of them going missing, though no one seems all that concerned. The kids are all haunted by any number of things, none looking exactly the same, all of them terrifying and unseen by others. There is always a clown somewhere in the mix. That is Pennywise, whose origin is unknown. The chubby kid (whose name I’ve forgotten) does research in the library and discovers that every 27 years, kids start disappearing. Somehow the kids conclude that whatever is doing this disappearing appears once every 27 years and eats kids and they have to kill it.

Amongst all the gore and mayhem is a nice coming of age story, one that surprisingly doesn’t end in more death. There may be some SPOILERS ahead. The book spent a lot of time talking about a lot of issues. The book is also a thousand pages long. I can’t imagine being an editor for Stephen King, or if he even uses one. I really tried to remember the book as I watched the movie, and only a couple scenes stood out, the scary ones. I don’t even remember some of the tenser sequences. I stumbled upon an article today that talked about a sex scene that I don’t even remember from the book (with all the kids, glad that didn’t make the cut!). While I’m sure King had a reason for putting such things in there, it was grotesque. I also wondered, at the very end of the movie, when the kids swear a blood pact, how they don’t all contract Hep C or something. I mean, they also ran around a sewer and crack house and didn’t get seriously ill, seems surprising. 

I wouldn’t say this was a good movie. I wouldn’t say it was a bad movie. It felt like it just was. This rush for 1980s content is both fascinating and frustrating. I grew up in the 1980s. It is just plain weird to see these kinds of movies being considered as period pieces, but they are. Overall, this movie captured the King mythos of It well. It took me back to that time, the time when talking to strangers was something explicitly warned about. Not now, where it is assumed that people you don’t know can’t be trusted. It did bother me that there was exactly one minority character and one girl (this fails the Hina test), and that is accurate for the 1980s. It was the same complaint I had while watching Stranger Things. Why is diversity such an issue? Just because the times have changed doesn’t mean those people didn’t exist.

Much like It, this review rambled about as much as Stephen King did. I still can’t believe my parents let me read that book.

Movie Review: Terminator 2 Judgement Day 3D

The streak continues! I managed to drag someone to this movie (thanks, LaToya!) and I ate a lot of her popcorns. If you are unaware of this movie, somehow, then there might be SPOILERS ahead, however, the movie was modified, I’m told, though I’m not such a huge fan that I’d be able to tell the difference. The premise of all the Terminator movies is that machines are going to take over the world and the resistance keeps sending people/machines back in time to try to stop the machines from trying to kill the human leader, John Connor. The concept from the first movie seems pretty crazy, but the opening sequence with the second movie gives a visual representation of what that war between machines and humans might look like.

From a nostalgic point of view, other than the antiquated technology, the movie feels like a solid snapshot in time, a good illustration of a future demise. It was campy when the movie referenced dates that had already passed, and the machines had not taken over. Additionally, from the Hina test, diversity and strong female characters, this movie actually has mostly solid representation considering the one African American man dies a hero, sacrificing himself and the one woman in the movie is a complete badass. I would like to have seen more diverse characters, but I can’t argue with a twenty year old movie that did such a good job on diversity, something a current movie couldn’t boast.

I would say, if you were ever a fan of the Terminator series, then this is a movie you should see. If you never saw the movie or don’t remember it well, this is one that you should see. I do appreciate that James Cameron is not someone I could ever root for, but he occasionally makes good movies and this is one of them.

Movie Review: Wind River

I had a streak going where I’ve seen a movie every weekend for almost a month and thought, let’s not break the cycle. I’d heard good things about Wind River, but the story lacked a certain resonance that I will put into words towards the end of the review (if you have any political sensitivities, just stop now).

Wind River takes place in a frozen reservation in Wyoming, one of the only places the US did not steal the land from the Native Americans. The movie opens with an unseen hunter sniping a wolf as it eyes a group of sheeps. The hunter is Jeremy Renner and he is supposed to be this ace tracker (hunter), who is also estranged from his family. He is tracking a lion family that attacked someone’s cow and stumbles upon a woman, dead, in the snow and ice. The FBI come to investigate in the form of Elizabeth Olsen (the two are in the Avengers movies together). The story revolves more around the characters than the mystery itself. The twists and turns are not wholly unexpected, but the way the truth is revealed is still a mystery. I’m still not sure how Jeremey Renner’s character knew what was about to happen, save that the movie portrays him as a master tracker.

The scenes were really breathtaking. If the movie was really filmed in Wyoming, on a Native American reservation, the place was beautiful. The contrast the movie gave, of course, was that amidst this beautiful place, awful people are still capable of awful things. In most cases, I wouldn’t feel compelled to comment on the overall whiteness of the movie. There may be SPOILERS ahead, and if you are interested in seeing the movie and don’t want to be surprised, STOP READING.

As you may know, Jeremey Renner is white. He is also immortalized in my mind as the man who dismissed fighting for equal pay for his female costars. It’s hard to ignore this point. That isn’t to take away from how good an actor he is, but it makes him, as a human being, harder to watch and cheer for. In many ways, to me, Jeremey Renner is a lot like Tom Cruise. Both are in movies that they seem to want to be the down-and-out guy who is the only one that can save the world. This is not unique to them, but in cases like this movie, they are often the only white face that is supposed to be redemptive. I think of Cruise in countless movies where he wants to be something else, but ends up coming off as just a white dude appropriating someone else’s culture. And that is what Renner’s character does. The movie would have been better served, but never made probably, with a primarily Native American cast, save for the token FBI agent and of course the bad guys. And this leads to a second sort of point, the guys that end up raping and chasing a girl into the cold are all white. Those white men work at an oil rig that is on a Native American reservation. Whether they are there legally or not, the movie clearly portrays both them and the company as evil.

On the surface, one could argue that the movie is about one white guy saving us from most bad white guys. I felt that the movie did a huge disservice to the Native American community, yet it did portray their plight, their situation under the boot of the white oppression perfectly. But it was in that conflict that I found Renner’s character so confounding. Yes, I understand the movie would not be made without a white face in it. But for the movie to additionally make Renner the hero, as a white man, in a Native American world, almost seemed offensive. I felt dirty watching him play the hero. It was as if the movie were trying to state, yes, white men took all that the Native Americans, but this one is like them and only he can do what they can’t. The overt whiteness and almost white worship in the movie was additionally atrocious given the current climate of Nazis walking freely on American streets. Why is it so impossible for Hollywood to see this? It seems so ridiculously obvious.

The fact that all of this continues to flow through my head, instead of the actual plot or compelling characters throughout the movie is that much more dissatisfying. Don’t get me wrong. The movie was good, the story had its moments, but I wouldn’t consider it to watch. A friend, who is a huge Renner fan, saw it and loved it, but I can see why she would. He is very good in it. His character is fully developed, if a little bit of an archetype. This version of Renner seemed little different from Hawkeye from the Avengers movies. And then I wonder, why did they have to white-wash the movie? Why did they make the Native American cops seem so inept, as if they never could have solved the mystery without the white man to come save them? I realize this is a take that is a little extreme, but in a movie that has only dead Native American women in (basically), it makes you wonder about what the purpose of the movie was except to add to the growing number of movies that are led by a straight, white male lead.

With respect to my beloved Hina test, measuring diversity, this movie failed. It failed in spectacular fashion. If all my previous comments weren’t enough, you have some people who aren’t white, but they are all portrayed as inept or aimless or unable to do anything. Only the white man, Jeremy Renner, can save them. Add one, exactly one woman into the cast, and guess what, she’s also inept, but thankfully Jeremy Renner is there to save her. This movie felt like a self-indulgent tour for Jeremy Renner, staring Jeremy Renner, produced by Jeremy Renner, with special thanks to Jeremy Renner.